Trade Fair Alternatives – How to Avoid Slumps in Sales
When trade fairs were cancelled or postponed indefinitely during the Covid pandemic, product launches still had to happen. These trade fair alternatives helped companies present their products, make new contacts and keep sales on track.
Keeping your marketing going with trade fair alternatives
Whether it’s the upcoming launch of a new product or products already on the market, regular exchange within the industry or new contacts: for many companies, trade fairs are an important part of their marketing strategy. That’s why, during the Covid pandemic, many companies looked for trade fair alternatives.
Trade fair alternatives are digital marketing formats that replaced trade fairs during Covid. There are various trade fair alternatives, such as virtual trade fairs and product videos.
We have put together four alternatives to the trade fair stand. The advantage: you can commission and carry out all of them (almost) from your home office.
Trade fair alternatives in a nutshell: the decision-making aid for companies
Your customers and partners can’t come to the trade fair? Then bring your trade fair stand to their office or home! The digital trade fair alternative.
If you have access to your trade fair stand, it can be staged perfectly in photos or video by professionals. But even if your stand isn’t available, that’s no problem: you can use individual parts such as roll-ups or just the counter to create a pleasant ambience. Alternatively, meeting rooms, showrooms and any other room can be decorated to create a pleasant atmosphere in the video. Trust the trained eye of film professionals here.
And what do you show at your virtual trade fair? Simply show and explain your products as you would have done at the trade fair. A professional film crew will even give you free camera coaching so that you come across as well as possible. A nice side effect: in a video you can say every sentence as often as you like. Little slip-ups can simply be cut out and the take repeated until you are happy with your performance.
Our tip: don’t reach for your phone yourself or let your apprentices and interns work with the in-house SLR camera. Your trade fair stand belongs in professional hands – and so does your trade fair alternative.
As a special extra, you can include existing films in your virtual trade fair film. So show your corporate film and all other suitable marketing videos. The good thing: videos are more effective than text and images, because statistically people retain 90% of the content of videos, but only 10% of texts. So turn the disadvantage into an advantage!
Options, costs and best-practice examples for companies
Product presentations on video
No live presentation in front of an audience? No problem! You can also present your products in the classic way in a product video. Such a video can be live-action or animated.
With suitable music, sound effects and a professional voice-over artist, the result is a video your customers will enjoy watching. A professional voice-over artist is recommended, as they can significantly increase the quality of a product video. The voice-over can also be recorded in several languages, so you can use your product video worldwide with minimal effort.
Options, costs and best-practice examples at a glance
Possible extras for a product video are subtitles and/or captions, which make your trade fair alternative look even more appealing.
The advantage for you: the product video can be used over a long period. This gives it an even longer impact than a trade fair, and it potentially reaches more customers.
Presenting new concepts as an explainer video
Explainer videos are perfect for explaining products or services that need explanation, training employees and customers, or simplifying processes. That makes them an excellent trade fair alternative.
Like the product video, an explainer video can be live-action or animation – or a mix of both, depending on where the focus should be. Here too, a professional voice-over artist provides that extra quality, and for international companies it can easily be in several languages. With subtitles and animated captions, the video is understandable even without sound.
The difference between a product video and an explainer video is that an explainer video focuses on information and facts, while a product video can be designed both factually and emotionally.
Options, costs and best-practice examples for companies
Personal messages and presentations without a trade fair
Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures. Have you ever thought about sending a personal video message? It’s not only the cheapest kind of video but also the most personal. Because human warmth doesn’t always have to mean a personal meeting. You can also communicate with your customers, employees, partners and suppliers through video messages and give your communication a whole new, personal touch.
So it is worth considering having your managing director, sales manager or social media manager send a personal video message. Just make sure professionals are at work, so that the person is literally shown in the best light and staged effectively. Some film production companies even offer free camera coaching here. Bonus: while the film crew is on site, you can have impressions of the office, the team and other products filmed at the same time and use them for your communication.
As with alternative #1, you can use anything here that creates a nice atmosphere and a great background: parts of a trade fair stand or any room. Trust the trained eye of the film production company here.
The free eBook on trade fair alternatives (in German)
A detailed handbook on all the options for different trade fair alternatives. Besides application examples, the eBook in handy PDF format also gives cost estimates and statistics on different alternatives.
Cancelled trade fair? Plan instead of acting rashly
You are convinced by a trade fair alternative and want to put it into practice as quickly as possible? So why not just get out your phone camera and start?
Sounds simple, but in most cases it certainly isn’t sensible. Your trade fair appearance is the heart of your communication and is meticulously planned and carried out by professionals. So that your customers get the same quality they are used to from you, you should carry out your trade fair alternatives with the same standard of quality. This ensures the advertising impact is just as strong as your trade fair appearance. So commission a film production company that has the necessary equipment and, above all, the expertise.
Isn’t that far too expensive, or doesn’t it take far too long? Depending on scope and workload, you can use your finished film within just two weeks. And compared with other per-head advertising measures, a film can be significantly more profitable, because its lifespan is generally longer than that of other marketing measures. A film only becomes really expensive if you use too many of your own resources (e.g. untrained employees behind the camera) or the finished film tends to affect your image negatively (e.g. poor quality due to a lack of qualifications).
If you are looking for a trade fair alternative, we are happy to advise you free of charge and with no obligation. Just give us a call or send us an email.
Free eBooks to help you decide (in German)
To make it easier for you to decide which film production company and which company film is the right choice for you, we have put together practical eBook handbooks for free download:
Video marketing – the comprehensive handbook for companies (download)
Finding the right film production company – the handbook (download)
Yvonne Schwalowski is a marketing consultant and strategic film producer at Pathfinder Studios and the author of several novels, published by Piper among others. With B2B experience since 2008 and successful multimedia projects for 450+ clients, she is an experienced marketing expert for European companies – from tech start-ups and hidden-champion industrial companies to corporations such as MAN, Miele and Audi. Her commercials and short films have won several international awards, and her first international feature film is currently being completed. Wikipedia – Portfolio – LinkedIn – IMDb
Yvonne Schwalowski is a marketing consultant and strategic film producer at Pathfinder Studios and the author of several novels, published by Piper among others. With B2B experience since 2008 and successful multimedia projects for 450+ clients, she is an experienced marketing expert for European companies – from tech start-ups and hidden-champion industrial companies to corporations such as MAN, Miele and Audi. Her commercials and short films have won several international awards, and her first international feature film is currently being completed.
Wikipedia – Portfolio – LinkedIn – IMDb
